Teedyuscung (ca. 1700-1763)
Wilkes-Barre, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
Called "King of the Delawares," he upheld the dignity of Native Americans and strove to protect their right to land in Pennsylvania. Baptized by the Moravians, he established the Wyoming Valley''s last Delaware & Mahican settlement near this site in 1754. A buffer between the Iroquois and Connecticut settlers, he represented his people in conferences at Easton, 1756-1762. He died when his cabin burned down here, April 19, 1763.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
Teedyuscung, called "King of the Delawares," led the last Delaware and Mahican community in the Wyoming Valley, which he established near here in 1754. Baptized by the Moravians, he stood between the powerful Iroquois and encroaching Connecticut settlers and pressed his people's claims to land at a series of treaty conferences in Easton from 1756 to 1762. He died in 1763 when his cabin burned at this spot.
Why it matters
His life captures the impossible position of Native leaders caught between colonial powers and rival nations during the mid-18th-century struggle for the Pennsylvania frontier.
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Related people
- · Teedyuscung
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
George Catlin
Wilkes-Barre, PA · est. 1947
In 1796 the boy who would become America's great chronicler of Native peoples was born in this corner of the Wyoming Valley, of Connecticut stock. George Catlin trained and practiced law here before abandoning the bar around 1823 for the paintbrush, and within a few years he set out to record the faces and lives of Indian nations across the young republic. His hundreds of portraits and scenes remain among the fullest visual records of Native America before it was transformed.
Connecticut Settlement
Wilkes-Barre, PA · est. 1947
In 1762 settlers from Connecticut planted their first community here on the Susquehanna Purchase, a tract the colony claimed under its sea-to-sea charter deep in what Pennsylvania considered its own territory. The fragile settlement was destroyed in an Indian attack on October 15, 1763, and the valley lay unsettled by the newcomers until they returned in 1769. The episode opened one of colonial America's most contested land struggles in the Wyoming Valley.
Shawnee Fort
Plymouth, PA · est. 2003
As the Revolution began, the Continental Congress ordered a chain of frontier forts to shield settlers in the contested Wyoming Valley, and Shawnee Fort was one of them. It guarded Connecticut-backed Yankee settlers — both from British-allied raiders and from Pennsylvanians who claimed the same lands — and served as the garrison of Capt. Samuel Ransom's company, which fought under Washington. Burned after the bloody Battle of Wyoming in 1778 and rebuilt, it was finally swept away by a flood in 1784.
Battle of Wyoming
Wyoming, PA · est. 1952
On July 3, 1778, the Revolution reached the Susquehanna frontier in one of its bloodiest backcountry episodes. A small force of about 300 patriots under Colonel Zebulon Butler marched out to meet a much larger column of British, Loyalists, and allied Iroquois led by Major John Butler. The patriots were routed, many captives were killed, and terrified survivors fled to the refuge of Forty Fort.